According to Reuters, Downing made the announcement in a lecture in Singapore last week. Along with a DOJ team, he is currently touring a number of Asian cities including Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with financial and tax regulatory bodies and bankers to discuss cross-border tax evasion, money has moved from Switzerland to the Caribbean and Asia. In addition, some clients with offshore financial accounts are choosing to take cash from Swiss Bank accounts and carry it by hand back to the United States, in an attempt to avoid an electronic trail, only to be caught by U.S. law enforcement officers . Of course if your bring back more than $10,000 in cash into the U.S. it must be declared on Treasury Form 4790. Civil and criminal tax penalties for failure to make the declaration can run to $500,000 not to mention imprisonment for ten years.

“When they go in and close their accounts, they are picking up brand new $100 bills…that are coming in $100,000 shrink-wrapped bundles. Guess what? We can trace that money,” Downing said, adding such cash would be forfeited.

According to published reports, German and French authorities are getting in on the action as well. Germany is offering to pay for data from whistleblowers on clients of Swiss banks who may be committing tax evaders as well. While Downing declined to say whether the Justice Department was investigating any other foreign banks, U.S. tax controversy lawyers at Brager Tax Law Group, A P.C.